Wireless personal devices such as mobile phones, electronic mail (email) devices, and converged personal digital assistant/phones (also known as “smart phones”) have greatly improved the ability of people to contact business associates, friends and family, and automated information technology (IT) systems. A person carrying such a device (a “mobile person”) can be contacted virtually anytime and anywhere.
There are many different communication methods available to communicate with a “mobile person.” These methods include voice telephony, SMS (short messaging service), MMS (multimedia messaging service), email, text messages, chat, voice-over-IP (Internet Protocol), push-to-talk, fax and the like. In a typical implementation, these communication methods are “instant;” in other words, they allow the originator of the communication to reach the recipient of the communication in “real-time,” with little or no delay.
Real-time instant communication of this type can be a dual-edged sword. On one hand, real-time communication greatly increases the ability of people to communicate. On the other hand, it opens up issues of privacy and distraction. Simply put, many people do not want to be reachable by all people all the time. However, this situation can be complicated by the fact that many “mobile persons” need or want to be available to certain groups of people (including people they do not know) virtually all the time.
In other words, mobile persons have limited mechanisms to control who can communicate with them and when, and at what times. This problem can be referred to as “a total availability problem.”
Another problem with mobile messaging is that it does not succeed in replicating, for example, a personal computer (PC) type of environment, where a person is able to switch relatively easily and seamlessly between different applications. In other words, a mobile person may receive voice mail, email, text messages and the like. Presently, each of these messages is displayed in different methods and one message can be easily overlooked when a mobile person is focusing on another message.